


an approximation of clean

by remnantof



Series: T/Jverse [1]
Category: DCU, DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Closeted Character, Death References, Emotional Baggage, Español | Spanish, Established Relationship, Family, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Interracial Relationship, M/M, Sleepovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-15
Updated: 2011-07-15
Packaged: 2017-10-21 10:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/224221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remnantof/pseuds/remnantof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of a long-term established relationship Tim/Jaime AU started with <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/just_peachy">just_peachy</a>.  After a case goes sour in Gotham, Tim visits his boyfriend in El Paso to process events and get some sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	an approximation of clean

**Author's Note:**

> reposted from tumblr by the author, betaed by [just_peachy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/just_peachy)

It’s one-thirty am in El Paso, when Tim lifts Jaime’s window open and slides through it. There’s a fence around the yard, no one’s going to call him in—if they would anyway. Gotham’s not very good for that either.

He doesn’t know how Jaime can sleep, one am on a Thursday in a city this dangerous. The first wave of bar dwellers will be filtering into the streets soon, and there must be hundreds of people out there who could use the Blue Beetle, probably more. Tim could crawl back out into the night, finish the patrol Dick pulled him from, like he can still _do_ that. _It’s a school night_ , he’d said, like that means anything now, like it ever meant anything.

Tim had left with blood on his gauntlets to give back to the night. Mix it into roof grit and scrape the rest on the side of buildings. Gotham eats its own, takes and takes and sometimes Tim forgets what it gives back. Why he hasn’t moved into the Tower on the opposite side of the country and started living again.

He’d see Jaime more. He can see Jaime right now: he has school tomorrow, he’s asleep. He’s not out there, and Tim isn’t sure if Jaime _does_ night patrols when aliens aren’t invading. He doesn’t stir when Tim closes the window and stands in the deeper shadows next to it, just…resting. Acclimating, watching. When Jaime rolls over, still asleep, he sighs and shifts, spine blinking blue and dark again like an LED. The Scarab knows he’s here, but how much it cares remains to be seen. Jaime isn’t covered in alien armor the second Tim moves toward the bed, so it must be all right. He takes it slow all the same, removing his own armor at the foot of the bed, out of the moonlight so he can still see Jaime, tousled and worn from sleep.

First the cowl, the heavy cape, the bandoliers. Next the gauntlets, the boots. Scarab starts humming when the tunic and tights come off, and Tim has a tired smirk, wonders if it appreciates more than the fact that Tim is disarming himself. Tim still leaves his belt on top of the pile, listens to Jaime sighing _what is it_ and pushes a hand through his hair. He should have showered, but if he’d done that he’d have gone home, and he doesn’t want to be there right now. “What,” Jaime asks, clearer, as Tim smirks again and crawls up the bed, stripped to his black shorts.

His laugh is worn to his own ears, hoarse and small when he rolls over and lets Jaime pin him to the sheets. He taught him that move, at the Tower, but this application is better. “Good morning,” he purrs, just to hear Jaime groan and hate him a little. “I was in the neighborhood,” he adds, arching under Jaime until he shifts his weight, makes it harder to move.

“So you broke into my house and got naked,” Jaime finishes, sounding incredulous, but not really surprised. Dreams or nightmares really do come true, especially in their lives. “It’s—it’s two in the fucking morning, pendejo. It’s a _school night_.” Tim laughs again, turns his head and breathes in sweat and cheap shampoo from Jaime’s pillow. Ocean clean, ocean breeze, something the color of a urinal cake and Tim’s laugh eases into a hum. They should visit the beach, the Tower has—

he’s tired, he’s chasing thoughts more than he’s managing them right now. There’s a lot to manage and it’s probably better if they just get away from him. “So everyone keeps telling me,” he says, biting the fabric a little. There’s a click from Jaime swallowing and a hum from the Scarab, probably offering to vaporize him.

Jaime hasn’t let it kill him yet. Tonight, Tim isn’t sure he cares. He just wants the smell of Gotham—the smell of that woman’s perfume and her blood and his vomit and the sad sour ugly smell of Dick’s concern—out of his mind, out of his senses. He wants to take Jaime to the ocean right now: the plane isn’t far, Jaime can fly anyway and who hasn’t skipped on a Friday for a weekend at the beach?

“Let’s go to the Tower,” he says, making Jaime screw up his face like he’s in pain and roll away from him. “I know you’re really committed to this high school dropout routine Tim, but I have to go in tomorrow. I have to go in _early_ , I promised to help set up the pep rally.” Tim’s snort is unkind and reflexive, earns his arm a smack. “Shut up and get out of my house already.”

It hurts: he pretends it doesn’t. “What’ll you do if I don’t, tell your parents there’s a boy in your bed?” Jaime’s face hardens, now he’s hurt too. It isn’t what Tim came here to do, but at least it’s a distraction. At least he can almost be Robin, carefree boy wonder at two am on a school night, even if right now it amounts to being an asshole. Now Jaime’s just being quiet, not indulging him or something worse—thinking. “I”ll go with you,” Tim whispers, “It’ll be like a sleepover, normal kids have those right? We can go to the Tower after.” A weekend away from Gotham, away from mundane criminals whose crimes are anything but. Tim groans, doesn’t wait for Jaime’s answer before he rolls into Jaime’s side and is rewarded with an arm slung over him and a sigh.

“What’s this really about,” Jaime asks. Tim groans again, feels childish, pushing his face into Jaime’s shoulder and starting to feel the strain all through his body, muscles that need to be stretched. He’ll pay for that tomorrow. So the fuck what. “Come on,” Jaime says, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Can’t I just want to see you?”

“Not at two in the fucking morning. Now fess up or get out, I don’t function on four hours of sleep a night.” Jaime snorts, “ _You_ don’t either. _You_ pull shit like _this_.”

Tim grimaces against the sweat gathered in Jaime’s collar, licks salt from his skin and gets a shove. That’s not what he came for either, even if he’d like to. Stop talking, keep playing, touch Jaime until he stops being mad. Prove his worth by tracking his tongue down and sucking Jaime’s cock. If he weren’t exhausted, he’d already be down there. “I don’t want to talk about it, it’s stupid. I couldn’t sleep yet and I wanted to see you.” Touch you, taste you, hear you, smell you. “I just want to sleep here, just for a little while.”

There’s a soft whine under his voice, a wilted quality asking please, stop talking. Just go to sleep. Just say yes.

But Jaime asks again, almost sounds more patient than tired this time and his mouth touches the top of Tim’s head, he kisses his dirty hair and his breath warms it. Tim feels disgusting and disgusted and better all at the same time, feels his insides shrink a little more and his voice wring out in his throat: “You don’t want to hear it, you don’t want to know. Go to sleep.”

“I can’t when you’re being a creepy shit,” Jaime snorts, and he can feel it against his scalp, feels his hands clutch at Jaime like they can make him stop asking. It was just a case, Tim mutters, just another case—like so many before it that it shouldn’t even matter, and his voice gets smaller the more he protests, like a candle going out. “What happened,” Jaime asks, sounding awake now, sounding—he’s not mad anymore. He was never really mad. “Just _tell_ me, please. I won’t get upset, I won’t tell anyone else, it’s okay.”

It’s not okay. The flame has gone out and Tim presses closer because he wants to disappear, and it’s too much to get up and get dressed right now, crawl back out the window and feel this way in private, on the plane. Feel it hitting him, how fucked up it all is, how fucked up _he_ is, like his personality is another muscle he’s overworked but forgotten to stretch. “She,” he swallows, mouth dry and now his voice is a thin whisper of smoke, it gutters and chokes before he can keep going. “We lost a suspect we were tailing— _I_ lost him, we had to split up—

“It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes, she was still alive when we found her and I _tried_ , Jaime I _tried_ —”

It should be enough, he could stop there and let that be the long and short of it, a bad night in Gotham and someone they couldn’t save, but that’s every night, that’s the people on the streets after they finally go to sleep. Jaime’s already trying to gather him up but Tim shakes his head, just says it: “She had on some kind of perfume. Something light and expensive. It. My mom smelled like that, I’d forgotten.”

Someday Tim is going to make a list of all the people he’s lost, and it will start with the Graysons and work its way past Jason to Janet Drake. An overpriced shrink will hum and ask him why he didn’t list her first, and Tim will answer that the list is chronological.

The shrink will hum again and write something down, tell him that grief doesn’t work that way. Tim will get a new shrink. One who doesn’t tell him things he already knows.

Jaime probably won’t be around then, but he’s around now, quiet enough that Tim thinks he’s going back to sleep. The arm over his side shifts, fits between them so Jaime can fit his hand over Tim’s ribs, slide it under his arm and around to cup the back of his neck. Something slick and ugly like fear spreads out from Tim’s gut, that question that always forms when he admits something like that, the guilt of being vulnerable for irrational reasons at irrational times: she’s been dead for five years and that woman, he didn’t _know_ her. He didn’t _lose_ anything tonight.

Is he doing it for attention? Is he just being manipulative? If he’s on the road to hell he’d rather pave it with good intentions, and he can’t find any here. He’s just bothering his boyfriend on a school night, being an asshole and trying to get away with it because he’s. Because he’s sad, right? He’s fucked up. He flies to Texas in the middle of the night because he can’t just cry at home.

The sick feeling becomes a shiver that doesn’t quite stop, tension all through him that he really should have stretched to prevent, or maybe had a different life entirely. “I’m sorry,”

“No,” Jaime finally says, pressing the flat of his hand against the back of Tim’s head, tugging him closer and rubbing a short circle against his hair. It’s more weird than soothing, but Tim doesn’t mind. “Don’t be sorry, you didn’t.” Jaime sighs. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t want you to think you can’t talk about stuff like this.”

“Even on a school night,” Tim asks, voice more small than wry.

“Yeah, even on a school night.”

They’re still for awhile: Jaime kneads the back of Tim’s neck with strong fingers, everyones’ breathing evens out. It’s not really a rubdown but it’ll do, some of the tension leaves him and his thoughts blur together, become a slow rolling train of: warm, dirty, cheap shampoo, Jaime, mother, desert, blood, Gotham, pulse, perfume. A smell that is sea foam green, iced tea and mint and musk, and the bottle was. The bottle was all silver and white, clear, he saw her lift it once and spray one wrist, touch it to the other, trail a finger through it and draw the finger across her throat.

Cross your heart and hope to die.

His eyes leak hot against Jaime’s neck and his breath is a rattle-wheeze of restraint. He won’t cry, not now, not over something this old. Jaime strokes his sweaty hair and turns onto his back, drags Tim partway on top of him and brackets his shoulders with his arms. “You never talk about her,” he says. “You don’t really talk about any of them, or yourself. You just talk around everything.”

Tim doesn’t say _no one wants to hear_ , because then Jaime will protest. Then Jaime will say he wants to, and it won’t mean anything. “You don’t talk about your mom either.”

“What’s to know,” Jaime huffs, doesn’t quite laugh. “You’ve met her, she’s great—wasn’t yours?”

“I don’t know.” She put on her cocktail dresses with a frown and didn’t like her earrings. Chose the gold hoops from her mother, would have to wait for a granddaughter to pass them on to. Put her hair back in a ponytail and trailed that light, sexless scent over her skin, rubbed aloe into her sunburnt shoulders and probably spent the evening thinking about her next trip. Somewhere hotter and rougher, somewhere with hiking boots and tools. He had this idea of her, not as a mother, just a person, who hated Gotham because she didn’t realize how rough it really was. How much there was to study just beyond the walls and gates of their house.

“How don’t you know?” Tim wants to crawl into something and not come out until the sun is up, like crawling into Jaime’s room, into his bed, isn’t enough. “I don’t think she cared if I knew. I don’t think she cared if anyone knew.”

“I’m sorry.”

“ _You_ didn’t do anything,” Tim laughs, close enough that his lips press into his teeth and his teeth are pressed against Jaime’s skin, almost like a bite but no effort in it. Jaime’s _shut up_ quiets them both again, just the noises of the house, sparse traffic, the scarab humming.

Tim hears voices, sliding and slurred and small through the window. Another window closes, clicks into place: Jaime’s parents. He wonders if they heard anything, wonders what tomorrow will be like. “Are you going to tell them,” he asks, leaving Jaime to catch up or keep quiet. “I won’t…you don’t have to. I can go home before they get up; we can make something up. I don’t mind.”

Jaime huffs a laugh. “Of course you mind. _I_ mind, I just need to do it. Don’t worry about it, don’t worry about tomorrow.” Both hands in Tim’s hair now, tugging and framing his head until Jaime can kiss his forehead, sleepy sexless affection that goes right through him. “It’s all going to be fine.”

“Alright,” he won’t. They’re not Tim’s family: he’ll leave it to Jaime. Dick will go back to the manor and look for him, find the missing plane instead. He’ll track it here, tomorrow he’ll track it to San Francisco. Nothing will have to be said, Tim will go home Sunday afternoon and everything will stay the same. A family of trained detectives, where no one has to declare anything. He likes it that way. He prefers it.

The Reyes will probably be the first people expressly told, and he won’t be the one to tell it. He might not even be there, he’ll just know from the clues their eyes and twitching mouths will leave. Tim was there when Brenda and Paco found out, but they didn’t have to be told either. Dinner and a movie, Paco took Brenda’s hand on the sidewalk and Tim had looked at Jaime, meant it as a joke, and they’d all laughed at Brenda’s cry of _I knew it_ when Jaime reached for him.

Maybe they’ll do that tomorrow: go to school, hide in plain sight. Fight crime during study hall and go somewhere stupid—go to the mall. Tim will drift after Jaime through his normal life full of normal things, and forget for awhile. Jaime will forget why Tim is here, they’ll go to the beach on Saturday.

“What’re you thinking about,” Jaime asks, voice thin and small as he sinks into sleep.

“Nothing bad,” Tim promises, shifting to get comfortable again and following him down.

-

Tim gets his shower after Jaime untangles himself, disappears: comes back damp and chilly in the morning air, separates out some clothes for Tim. They feel worn but smell unused—from before Jaime found the scarab, stopped wearing them.

He stares down at Tim’s uniform sprawled at the end of the bed, shakes his head and clicks his tongue, not saying what he wants to say. Not starting an argument. Tim moves it to the closet and moves on to the wet, warm bathroom.

He leaves the door open so Jaime will see him using Jaime’s tooth brush, gives himself a reason to smile this early when Jaime bitches. When he starts the water the questions will come, and he won’t be there to answer them. He won’t know what Jaime says, will have to be careful with his reactions, but he’d do that anyway. “Hurry up,” Jaime says, stopping in to bump him away from the sink with his hip. “You’re a mess.” Tim blinks and checks the mirror, the fog clearing. His hair is limp and tangled, there’s a pillow crease on his neck. He looks…like he got three hours of sleep. Like he _always_ gets three hours of sleep.

There’s grime at the corner of his eyes: he rubs it away, doesn’t understand it. “You woke up again,” Jaime prompts, brows drawn together. “Don’t you remember?” Tim shakes his head, thinks about reaching for Jaime but doesn’t. “I’ll be out soon,” he says instead, letting Jaime go, watching him close the door on his wary expression.

He must have been crying. His head hurts a little, Jaime is being nice to him, his eyes are still a little red over their bruises.

Wash it off. Start over.

The tub is smaller than he’s used to and the pressure is average: he has to run it for a few minutes to reheat it. His hamstrings complain when he steps in and his arms agree when he lifts them to find the soap, that shampoo he could smell on Jaime’s pillow.

Breathe, lather, rinse, repeat. Take it all one step at a time, one part at a time. He scrubs his hands and arms a little raw and still they don’t feel right. Probably won’t until they’re in a new pair of gauntlets. So leave it. Clean the rest, feel clean-faced and stripped of sweat. Break yourself down like a world problem and find a way to get the negative sum a little closer to zero. Jaime and sunlight, more bruises than stitches, no blood in the drain and he doesn’t have to go home yet.

Think positive. Tim huffs a series of laughs that run together and make his empty stomach wake up and protest. He’s clean, he’s wasting time and water that isn’t his. Rinse, cut off the water. Jaime’s towel is still wet but he uses it anyway, puts on Jaime’s clothes and feels them stick to his skin. It’s nice—there’s nothing else to qualify it with. He’s some approximation of clean and wearing his boyfriend’s clothes.

He can hear them in the kitchen, but he hangs back in the hall, listens to the pitch and roll of conversation he’s afraid to interrupt. That’s Alberto, a wryness in his tone that implies he’s asking the question again: “Trepó por una ventana,[1]” and Jaime is with him, answering reflexively, awkwardly. “Pero, él hace lo que quiere. Voy a hablar con él. Será atendido. Creo que sólo necesitaba un descanso de Gotham.[2]”

“¿no hay puertas de entrada en Gotham? O teléfonos? ¿Hay que conseguirlo un reloj?[3]” The slip and pull under the words might be anger or might be laughter: Tim can’t see Alberto’s face to be sure. “Bueno,” Jaime says, like he can’t tell either. “No funciona así.[4]”

Gentler now: “Bueno. Jaime, no estoy enojado. Estoy confundido, es muy temprano. Sé que este hombre es su— amigo—pero no es… sus otros amigos no romperse en la casa en la noche.[5]”

It’s the catch in his voice, the silence that follows. Tim’s stomach hurts and he wonders if Jaime’s does too. If he knows that they _know_ , that everyone knows but isn’t saying anything. Will probably never say anything, no matter how many times Tim climbs through that window, goes to a movie with Jaime, comes all the way from the east coast to see him.

“Tuvo una mala noche,” Jaime answers quietly. He doesn’t whisper, but his voice pitches lower, the house feels quieter when he speaks. “Mamá tiene noches malas también. Él no tenía intención de venir, pero necesitaba venir aquí.[6]” Tim is edging back to Jaime’s room, something caught in his throat and he doesn’t want to see anymore—their faces, their posture. He wants to fade back out the way he came, put on his uniform and disappear. Everyone knows, everyone knows he needs to be here and they have to know why; if he walks into that kitchen, what will they say? What will there be on their faces?

Milagro barrels past him then, making him flatten himself to the wall and stop as she cries, “Jaime! Your weird friend is in the hall. Is he taking your ugly clothes with him; I want to put my toys in your dresser.”

He’s still frozen when footsteps bounce through the kitchen and resolve into—Bianca, not Jaime—coming into the hall. Tim swallows and stops acting like there are enough shadows to hide in. She’s ready for work: green scrubs and white shoes, thick soles, hair pulled back into a dark ponytail. When he tries to read her face, he wonders how much she knows, what she must think, because she just seems…tired, with a measure of grace. Her hands are warm when she holds up a cup of coffee and takes his hand, puts it on the mug.

He can’t smell her over the coffee, strong and cut with milk, but he doesn’t think he needs to. “It’s okay,” she says, holding his hand a little longer, almost past the point of comfort. “Just make sure he gets his homework done before you both run off to save the world.” Her lips curl back in a smile, no derision, no disappointment, but she’s turning away as Tim thanks her, letting go of his hand to chase after Milagro. “What did I tell you about running in the house!”

“JAIME GOT THE OLD HOUSE BLOWN UP—”

“She thinks she can get away with anything now,” Jaime sighs, dodging out into the hall before more of his crimes can be repeated. Tim raises his eyebrows, _that’s super interesting_ and Jaime rolls his eyes, jostles him with his hip. All the energy he’s throwing off is nervous, directionless. “Are you okay?”

Is he? Tim lifts the mug, sips coffee that is just too warm, makes the inside of his mouth feel a little raw. If he’s honest, it feels like that everywhere inside him. “Yes,” he says anyway, smiling: it doesn’t reach his eyes, but his nose scrunches a little, the way Jaime likes. Tim slings an arm low around Jaime’s waist, squeezes his hip and makes him stay close for a minute. That shampoo smell is there, soap and hot water, toothpaste, deodorant. Nothing like perfume, nothing like blood.

He takes a chance, doesn’t hear anyone coming and turns his head, kisses the corner of Jaime’s mouth until Jaime sighs and turns his head to complete it, coffee and toothpaste and they disengage with short, silent laughs at the taste.

“Your mom is pretty great,” Tim says.

Jaime snorts again, louder. “Pendejo,” he says, making it sound fond: “you could just believe things when I tell you.”

 

* * *

  
 **1:** “He snuck in a window,” - _Berto_  
 **2:** “It’s—he kind of does that? I’ll talk to him, I’ll take care of it. I think he just needed a break from Gotham.” - _Jaime_  
 **3:** “Do they not have front doors in Gotham? Do they not have telephones? Should we get him a watch?” - _Berto_  
 **4:** “I know,” “I told him, he just.” - _Jaime_  
 **5:** “Just? Jaime, I’m not angry. I’m just confused, it’s very early. I know this boy is your—friend—but he’s not…your other friends don’t break into my house in the middle of the night.” - _Berto_  
 **6:** “He had a rough night,” “Like—like how mom has bad nights at the hospital. He didn’t plan to come here, he just needed to.” - _Jaime_  
 **Pendejo** : ass/dumbass


End file.
